Prague before and after the Iron Curtain

I visited Prague twice with the idea of painting some of those festive views of the city which had escaped the WWII bombs. The first time was during the Cold War, and our journey behind the Iron Curtain was a chilling and intimidating encounter with police holding machine guns to our throats.

We visited later, after it became part of the Czech Republic, and had a marvelous time. I never painted anything from either trip, so I recently decided to paint the Old Charles Bridge with its horse drawn carriages from memory and photos.

It is a metaphor of passing out of the oppressive pandemic, calami...